:)
I don't think you'd be that interested..
I'm *working* (prrr prrr) in Mexico..
It's not very well paid, but....considering it's mostly a sponsor for:
- Unreal Tournament
- Slashdot reading
- Maths/Phys reading
you won't easily get that much paid to to this I guess:)
Sounds great if you think about it like some kind of infamous beowulf cluster of these...
Then you'd have CPU_Power(N)~Sigma(i, 1, N, CPU_Power(i)) which is ~ N*CPU_Power(1) if all CPUs have the same power.
Unfortunately, it is well known that IQ != CPU_Power, in fact, estimations are:
IQ(N) ~ Min(i, 1, N, IQ(i))/N
which is, the intellectual quotient of a group of n individuals is about the inltelectual quotient of the dumbest member divided by the number of participants.
Reminds me of a despair.com poster "Idiocy" ("never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups")
Expect Monty Python's solutions to world problems
Yup, that's pretty much what I was trying to say. (sorry I do a bad job to do so)
My point being, (about not transforming energy but rather releasing it, leading sooner or later to a destruction of the molecule) that it's not the energy of the photon that is transformed into mechanical energy (having the same energy out than in thus) but (mechanical) energy released (thank's to the photon).
Yeah right....
No really, we do have very precise weather models...
That supercomputer we made you buy not only gave us a 280 fps boost at Q3A, but it also allows us to predict rain, temperatures very precisely anywhere on the globe for the next 20 years to come with.2% error only...
We can even predict where lightnings will strike and when...
It's those damn planes that invalidate everything...
Of course, we did include them in the model, but neither TWA nor any other airline respects its schedule.. that makes our task much harder...
Perhaps with an even more powerful supercomputer...
If it weren't energy conversion, you would only be able to bend the board once. Otherwise you would be getting energy from nowhere, or "using up" the molecules
Hmm yes, it's more or less what I was trying to imagine (if I understood you correctly), a long enough intricated molecule that could lose some electron in some of its parts due to the light, and gaining back the electrons from surrounding atoms, causing it to bend (for some reason)
Then, another frequency would create a similar effect, but to other parts of the molecule, rebalancing it. This could be done again and again, with electrons being exchanged from here to there and back in the molecule, but sooner or later, some of them would be completely lost (ejected from the molecule).
I suppose that when some electrons are partially ejected, the overall electrical balance is still met (neutral) but locally, electromagnetic dipoles are created forcing the molecules "parts" to get closer or farther...
It seems to me that it's not really energy power that creates mechanical energy as in "energy conversion" but rather that light energy triggers something in the molecule.
One specific frequency makes it contract, another one makes it expand itself, behaving then much like a spring and possibly moving a weight or bending a board.
the article is light on details (no pun intended), but I don't feel the light energy, related to its frequency has much to do with the released, or activated mechanical energy, and it seems to me that in fact bending the board might represent more work from the molecule than what the activating light is providing, so I think some energy could be leaked from the molecule itself.
Besides, the article says near the end that the molecule breaks after being used a whole day so that tere is work to be done, which makes me feel that indeed, some energy might be taken from the very molecule to achieve the "spring effect".
But then, what work could they actually do against that ? the destruction of the structure is bound to happen unless the pure photonic energy is used in the experiment (but then, why would it break in the first place, and how would that work ?)
Any chemist or physicist to correct me or explain me how this is working ?
Spider-Man...record-breaking...warm-hearted web-slinging...arachnoid-nerd...Spider-Man...die-h ard... pre-Net...sci-fi... rock-and-roll... free-speech... Spider-Man... X-Men... split-personality... outer-borough... Obi-Wan... myth-making...
It's true... myth is a good attention-driving-machine, it's a known-fact: Just look at how many posts are made at JonKatz articles just to tell him they hate whatever he has to say.
It's because of the myth.. they know it's an article from the evil hyphen-man, they will hate
it, but they will look at it anyway
The title is very misleading:
There is no question whatsoever that security through obscurity is no security in fact.
This means that a good design of OS/application, etc. and then an as good as possible implementatin of it, is mandatory to achieve a really secure platform.
However, in the windows case, the platform is already here, it is not security oriented (or wasn't at first) hence all the flaws we all know about.
Now since everybody has 'root privileges', Microsoft is absolutely correct in stating that not disclosing all the API (let alone the source) does indeed increase security. (again, in an already flawed system).
Any cracker knows that when you are on a new project, wether it be dongle cracking, visual basic application cracking, visual C cracking, palm os cracking etc.. the very first thing you look for is all the available documentation of the API or the working internals of the baby you are about to "own":)
You start softice and you look for this nasty register dialog box hmm.. ok so what does the APi tells me.. hmm.. ok I'll try a breakpoint on this call... ok.. getwindowtexta ok... hmm... here it is...
Outside the cracking scope, it is still completely obvious that obscurity does increase security if you are on an already compromised system.
Say your little system has a flaw so by doing a litle trick someone can get access... and a few one actually get to do it.
Great... now let everybody know about it and watch your problems increase exponentially.
Of course this is not to mean you couldn't patch, but in a case like the whole windows OS, there is really not much you can do against crackers, this is beyond repair, and like it or not, obscurity is what works best to.
I think you are not considering all the aspects of the radiation.
It's more than "just photons".
I mean.. of course it's just photons, but they aren't just randomly striking here and there which would then act as you described.
However, if you think about a microwave oven, the result is pretty spectacular, and the heating isn't due to either kinetic energy (strike) nor photoelectric.
The heat is created as a secondary effect by water molecules vibrating "in tune" with the electromagnetic wave and shocking against themselves (resultig in the kinnetic energy kind of effect you were talking about, but much stronger)
So in fact, we should also have to consider if for the specific frequencies that cellphones (or anything ele for that matter) couldn't have other "side effects" like the one we can observe with the water (but for microwaves).
Also, even considering a pure kinetic energy exchange from the photons directly (I can't think of many magnetic dipoles other than water in our bodies to be worrying about this effect). the periodicity is still of such strikes is also to consider as we could just find the right frequency for certain tissues for example..
(think about breaking glass)
Anyway, I completely agree with the rest of your post and defenitely find Oreos much more dangerous:)
Exactly !
the wave nature of light is known since Newton (although he was himself heavily against such a consideration)
I suppose the parent was confused with the same experiment but using electrons which was still compoletely known as a particle until Louis DeBroglie postulated it could also be a wave.
Electron wave/particle duality though is by itself two (pretty famous) experiments well worth mentioning because of their funny relationship:
They both gave Nobel prize to the Thompson family, first to the father, to show that the electron is indeed a particle, and later to his own son to prove that it is, indeed a wave:)
I however don't see those experiment so very easyily at the reach of the student and would much prefer the black body radiation you coment about.
I'd say it's easy enough, and it's just no big deal after all.. I mean.. who would have thought it would lead to quantum theory ? Planck himnself didn't !!!
It should give the student an idea of the importance of the details... theory explains things or it doesn't and if it doesn't... prepare yourself for a major overturn:)
Only if you define secure as a measurement (high).
If you think of secure as a property as in either it's secure either it isn't, which is the holly grail (findig a way to make something absolutely secure)
Then, (and only then ok), obscurity won't add anything to your scheme (unless of course your scheme of absolute security was originaly based on obscurity as part of it, but I don't bellieve that's possible) since it won't be more secure, it will just still be secure, and obscure too.
Now for everyday experience, where things are secure to a certain extent only, obscurity might add security to your scheme, if you want to use aspecific way to define it.
You now have a scheme consisting of several subschemes all aiming to securing your system. it's up to you how to measure the secureness of your system, contemplating all those 'coordinates'. it could be the sum of all the independent 'coordinates' (their respective secureness) which is what you seem to consider.
Or it could only be the sup of all of them.(which would better describe how I feel about it, unless any of the subsystem shortcuts the whole system in which case we should take the inf of course)
Anyway, you must see that in any ystem, the obsurity part has a "fixed value", and it's always very low compared to the rest of the system (well, it 'd better be).
So in the end, the real secureness is still mainly understood by your strongest 'coordinate'.
For me, security + obscurity is just that, a system both secure and obscure, but not more secure.
Aside from questionning the expansion actually happening, could someone tell me what do we mean by universe expansion ?
I wonder if we are talking about matter moving away like due to an original impulse, or if we are talking about universe "itself" (not really like the ether, but someting like "support for matter") expanding ?
I'm talking about "void" being something after all (though not matter, but you know.. the "drawing board" where matter can be drawn and interact. his very drawing board can have its own geometry, properties etc.)
I honestly don't know what do scientis mean when they talk about universe expansion, as I tend to 'view ' the unverse as a closed hypersphere (not really any good reason to do so but to put a stop to infinite recursive thoughts)
I suppose (hope) the question is valid.
I mean, I just read a few things around (obiously) but I think background radiation is caused by the original small size of the universe compared to the speed of light so that standing waves could be created or something like that. (ok maybe i just made it up..)
Anyway, I also think I've read that everything gets appart from everything, any two galaxies far enough are getting away from any other at the same rate, so this isn't comaptible with an explosion scenario in which clearly, the farther points (diametricaly oposites) would show the greatest shift and the closer one almost none.
So if this is the second scenario (or is this yet another one ??), how can we even relate it with the forces we can measure which only interact with matter ?(or not ? don't know about GR)
Gravity, electromagnetism etc. can very well attract/repulse matter, but why would this have to contract the universe itself ?
If i put small magnets, bound to the surface of a balloon and I start to inflate this balloon, the magnets will or will not collide collide if they attract themeselves better than i inflate the balloon, but they will not contract the balloon itself...
Could anybody tell me what do cosmologists mean when they say "universe expands" ?
Thanx....
Actually I was thinking about a silly episode of that michael knight's talking car, when it meets another (evil) talking car.
A very shitty episode btw, but I remember they were somehow raising the concept of what would happen if an indestructible object was to encounter another indestructible one, putting this as if it were a big scientific issue you know:)
like the cars were actually indestructible *lol*,
and even so, if that couldn't, for some reason, cause the end of the world or something:)
The thing is "indestructible sandwich" really struck me like "indestructible car":)
You are a fan of Star wars, Farscape (aka space whinners) and Galactica ?
Woah !:)
Aren't you forgetting the muppets show ?
Seriously, "Pigs in Space" has a better plot, and better, more believable characters.
And fighting against spambots by relying on UserAgent is akin to... well.... security thru obscurity, albeit somehow in reverse
Yeah.. except it's not what's being done there.(the trap doesn't rely on it, that is)
What also looks strange is that he doesn't consider that one can get a link directly to a page on the n-th level: as human browsers don't usually download robots.txt either, sounds like he's gonna ban some poor guys who got a link from a friend...
That's not true...
I suspect you only checked the first few lines of the article so that you could promptly have some insigthful coments about it (can't believe it actualy worked *congratualtions*) but didn't care about what was actualy done at all
Join The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout! April 21-27
Oh.. now I understand you are in fact focused on more interesting matters like the unthinkable lack of respect and recognition of the value of your insightful coments.. Of course.. well thank you for this peaceful week then
It's supposed to be under "science" so why is everybody asking how it tastes ?
We should be asking ourselves... what would happen if an indestructible sandwich travelling at very high speed were to meet another indestructible sandwich travelling at the same speed ??
Actualy you almost got it right:
Buttered bread *always* lands butter-down, unless you put the butter on the wrong side (Murphy Law).
Here lies the felines secret... they have buttered feet and so consistantly fall on their feet that's why.
I think your're assuming this virtual keyboard is intended to be a nice keyboard by itself.
But I don't think it is, it's just a better keyboard for handhelds or other very small devices that cannot have any decent keyboard at all.
Any real keayboard will be better than this, wether or not you are a touch typist.
This will however be much more useful than what we currently have for handhelds.
Couldn't this be a shape hint ?
I don't know how we got to estimate universe age (I'd like someone to tell me btw).
But if it is not based on geometric obervations but rather.. I don't know.. actual background radiation or something...
Than maybe the universe age isn't the only thing to consider if we see an apparently 'too old' galaxy, but rather a funny shape issue.
I was precisely trying to find some clues as how to find 'observable evidences' for a funny shaped Universe that 's why I thought this might be one.
If our Universe is like a 3d surface bending on a 4th (geometric, not time) dimension (it's still 3d but it is closed over itself like a sphere for example). then I expect som funny things to happen:
A star could glow, its wave front should expand sphericaly ad infinitum to the point its energy density is so low it's undetectable (too far) losing a lot of energy on its way (because of objects on its way), but then, it should a t a time of its travel reach the universe 'equator' (if Universe doesn't expand faster than light, but I don't think it does since i can see stars) and then starts to contract again until it reaches its oposite point on the surface. there, it should interfere with itself and continue its way but inverted.
On its way back, it could then appear to be a regular star, although it would in fact be a 'mirror image' of it.
Wouldn't that image lie on its age/distance ? (not sure how we really know its age/distance right now, so it might be a dumb supposition.. I really don't know).
Anyway... it could be interesting toobserve such a star because it would contain information of the whole universe:)
I think 3 stars like this would actualy give us a complete 'scan' of the universe...
Slashdot Mirror
:) :)
I don't think you'd be that interested..
I'm *working* (prrr prrr) in Mexico..
It's not very well paid, but....considering it's mostly a sponsor for:
- Unreal Tournament
- Slashdot reading
- Maths/Phys reading
you won't easily get that much paid to to this I guess
You just fully described my current job :)
No.. I'm not kidding...
That was Evariste Galois,, not Pierre de Fermat...
Sounds great if you think about it like some kind of infamous beowulf cluster of these...
Then you'd have CPU_Power(N)~Sigma(i, 1, N, CPU_Power(i)) which is ~ N*CPU_Power(1) if all CPUs have the same power.
Unfortunately, it is well known that IQ != CPU_Power, in fact, estimations are:
IQ(N) ~ Min(i, 1, N, IQ(i))/N
which is, the intellectual quotient of a group of n individuals is about the inltelectual quotient of the dumbest member divided by the number of participants.
Reminds me of a despair.com poster "Idiocy" ("never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups")
Expect Monty Python's solutions to world problems
Yup, that's pretty much what I was trying to say. (sorry I do a bad job to do so)
My point being, (about not transforming energy but rather releasing it, leading sooner or later to a destruction of the molecule) that it's not the energy of the photon that is transformed into mechanical energy (having the same energy out than in thus) but (mechanical) energy released (thank's to the photon).
Yeah right.... .2% error only...
No really, we do have very precise weather models...
That supercomputer we made you buy not only gave us a 280 fps boost at Q3A, but it also allows us to predict rain, temperatures very precisely anywhere on the globe for the next 20 years to come with
We can even predict where lightnings will strike and when...
It's those damn planes that invalidate everything...
Of course, we did include them in the model, but neither TWA nor any other airline respects its schedule.. that makes our task much harder...
Perhaps with an even more powerful supercomputer...
If it weren't energy conversion, you would only be able to bend the board once. Otherwise you would be getting energy from nowhere, or "using up" the molecules
Hmm yes, it's more or less what I was trying to imagine (if I understood you correctly), a long enough intricated molecule that could lose some electron in some of its parts due to the light, and gaining back the electrons from surrounding atoms, causing it to bend (for some reason)
Then, another frequency would create a similar effect, but to other parts of the molecule, rebalancing it. This could be done again and again, with electrons being exchanged from here to there and back in the molecule, but sooner or later, some of them would be completely lost (ejected from the molecule).
I suppose that when some electrons are partially ejected, the overall electrical balance is still met (neutral) but locally, electromagnetic dipoles are created forcing the molecules "parts" to get closer or farther...
It seems to me that it's not really energy power that creates mechanical energy as in "energy conversion" but rather that light energy triggers something in the molecule.
One specific frequency makes it contract, another one makes it expand itself, behaving then much like a spring and possibly moving a weight or bending a board.
the article is light on details (no pun intended), but I don't feel the light energy, related to its frequency has much to do with the released, or activated mechanical energy, and it seems to me that in fact bending the board might represent more work from the molecule than what the activating light is providing, so I think some energy could be leaked from the molecule itself.
Besides, the article says near the end that the molecule breaks after being used a whole day so that tere is work to be done, which makes me feel that indeed, some energy might be taken from the very molecule to achieve the "spring effect".
But then, what work could they actually do against that ? the destruction of the structure is bound to happen unless the pure photonic energy is used in the experiment (but then, why would it break in the first place, and how would that work ?)
Any chemist or physicist to correct me or explain me how this is working ?
Spider-Man...record-breaking...warm-hearted web-slinging...arachnoid-nerd...Spider-Man...die-h ard... pre-Net...sci-fi... rock-and-roll... free-speech... Spider-Man... X-Men... split-personality... outer-borough... Obi-Wan... myth-making...
It's true... myth is a good attention-driving-machine, it's a known-fact:
Just look at how many posts are made at JonKatz articles just to tell him they hate whatever he has to say.
It's because of the myth.. they know it's an article from the evil hyphen-man, they will hate it, but they will look at it anyway
The title is very misleading: :)
There is no question whatsoever that security through obscurity is no security in fact.
This means that a good design of OS/application, etc. and then an as good as possible implementatin of it, is mandatory to achieve a really secure platform.
However, in the windows case, the platform is already here, it is not security oriented (or wasn't at first) hence all the flaws we all know about.
Now since everybody has 'root privileges', Microsoft is absolutely correct in stating that not disclosing all the API (let alone the source) does indeed increase security. (again, in an already flawed system).
Any cracker knows that when you are on a new project, wether it be dongle cracking, visual basic application cracking, visual C cracking, palm os cracking etc.. the very first thing you look for is all the available documentation of the API or the working internals of the baby you are about to "own"
You start softice and you look for this nasty register dialog box hmm.. ok so what does the APi tells me.. hmm.. ok I'll try a breakpoint on this call... ok.. getwindowtexta ok... hmm... here it is...
Outside the cracking scope, it is still completely obvious that obscurity does increase security if you are on an already compromised system.
Say your little system has a flaw so by doing a litle trick someone can get access... and a few one actually get to do it.
Great... now let everybody know about it and watch your problems increase exponentially.
Of course this is not to mean you couldn't patch, but in a case like the whole windows OS, there is really not much you can do against crackers, this is beyond repair, and like it or not, obscurity is what works best to.
I think you are not considering all the aspects of the radiation. :)
It's more than "just photons".
I mean.. of course it's just photons, but they aren't just randomly striking here and there which would then act as you described.
However, if you think about a microwave oven, the result is pretty spectacular, and the heating isn't due to either kinetic energy (strike) nor photoelectric.
The heat is created as a secondary effect by water molecules vibrating "in tune" with the electromagnetic wave and shocking against themselves (resultig in the kinnetic energy kind of effect you were talking about, but much stronger)
So in fact, we should also have to consider if for the specific frequencies that cellphones (or anything ele for that matter) couldn't have other "side effects" like the one we can observe with the water (but for microwaves).
Also, even considering a pure kinetic energy exchange from the photons directly (I can't think of many magnetic dipoles other than water in our bodies to be worrying about this effect). the periodicity is still of such strikes is also to consider as we could just find the right frequency for certain tissues for example..
(think about breaking glass)
Anyway, I completely agree with the rest of your post and defenitely find Oreos much more dangerous
Exactly ! :) :)
the wave nature of light is known since Newton (although he was himself heavily against such a consideration)
I suppose the parent was confused with the same experiment but using electrons which was still compoletely known as a particle until Louis DeBroglie postulated it could also be a wave.
Electron wave/particle duality though is by itself two (pretty famous) experiments well worth mentioning because of their funny relationship:
They both gave Nobel prize to the Thompson family, first to the father, to show that the electron is indeed a particle, and later to his own son to prove that it is, indeed a wave
I however don't see those experiment so very easyily at the reach of the student and would much prefer the black body radiation you coment about.
I'd say it's easy enough, and it's just no big deal after all.. I mean.. who would have thought it would lead to quantum theory ? Planck himnself didn't !!!
It should give the student an idea of the importance of the details... theory explains things or it doesn't and if it doesn't... prepare yourself for a major overturn
If you vote for me, there will be no place for intolerant people here anymore !
:P
Only if you define secure as a measurement (high).
If you think of secure as a property as in either it's secure either it isn't, which is the holly grail (findig a way to make something absolutely secure)
Then, (and only then ok), obscurity won't add anything to your scheme (unless of course your scheme of absolute security was originaly based on obscurity as part of it, but I don't bellieve that's possible) since it won't be more secure, it will just still be secure, and obscure too.
Now for everyday experience, where things are secure to a certain extent only, obscurity might add security to your scheme, if you want to use aspecific way to define it.
You now have a scheme consisting of several subschemes all aiming to securing your system. it's up to you how to measure the secureness of your system, contemplating all those 'coordinates'. it could be the sum of all the independent 'coordinates' (their respective secureness) which is what you seem to consider.
Or it could only be the sup of all of them.(which would better describe how I feel about it, unless any of the subsystem shortcuts the whole system in which case we should take the inf of course)
Anyway, you must see that in any ystem, the obsurity part has a "fixed value", and it's always very low compared to the rest of the system (well, it 'd better be).
So in the end, the real secureness is still mainly understood by your strongest 'coordinate'.
For me, security + obscurity is just that, a system both secure and obscure, but not more secure.
Aside from questionning the expansion actually happening, could someone tell me what do we mean by universe expansion ?
I wonder if we are talking about matter moving away like due to an original impulse, or if we are talking about universe "itself" (not really like the ether, but someting like "support for matter") expanding ?
I'm talking about "void" being something after all (though not matter, but you know.. the "drawing board" where matter can be drawn and interact. his very drawing board can have its own geometry, properties etc.)
I honestly don't know what do scientis mean when they talk about universe expansion, as I tend to 'view ' the unverse as a closed hypersphere (not really any good reason to do so but to put a stop to infinite recursive thoughts)
I suppose (hope) the question is valid.
I mean, I just read a few things around (obiously) but I think background radiation is caused by the original small size of the universe compared to the speed of light so that standing waves could be created or something like that. (ok maybe i just made it up..)
Anyway, I also think I've read that everything gets appart from everything, any two galaxies far enough are getting away from any other at the same rate, so this isn't comaptible with an explosion scenario in which clearly, the farther points (diametricaly oposites) would show the greatest shift and the closer one almost none.
So if this is the second scenario (or is this yet another one ??), how can we even relate it with the forces we can measure which only interact with matter ?(or not ? don't know about GR)
Gravity, electromagnetism etc. can very well attract/repulse matter, but why would this have to contract the universe itself ?
If i put small magnets, bound to the surface of a balloon and I start to inflate this balloon, the magnets will or will not collide collide if they attract themeselves better than i inflate the balloon, but they will not contract the balloon itself...
Could anybody tell me what do cosmologists mean when they say "universe expands" ?
Thanx....
Actually I was thinking about a silly episode of that michael knight's talking car, when it meets another (evil) talking car. :) :) :)
A very shitty episode btw, but I remember they were somehow raising the concept of what would happen if an indestructible object was to encounter another indestructible one, putting this as if it were a big scientific issue you know
like the cars were actually indestructible *lol*, and even so, if that couldn't, for some reason, cause the end of the world or something
The thing is "indestructible sandwich" really struck me like "indestructible car"
You are a fan of Star wars, Farscape (aka space whinners) and Galactica ? :)
Woah !
Aren't you forgetting the muppets show ?
Seriously, "Pigs in Space" has a better plot, and better, more believable characters.
And fighting against spambots by relying on UserAgent is akin to... well.... security thru obscurity, albeit somehow in reverse
Yeah.. except it's not what's being done there.(the trap doesn't rely on it, that is)
What also looks strange is that he doesn't consider that one can get a link directly to a page on the n-th level: as human browsers don't usually download robots.txt either, sounds like he's gonna ban some poor guys who got a link from a friend...
That's not true...
I suspect you only checked the first few lines of the article so that you could promptly have some insigthful coments about it (can't believe it actualy worked *congratualtions*) but didn't care about what was actualy done at all
Join The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout! April 21-27
Oh.. now I understand you are in fact focused on more interesting matters like the unthinkable lack of respect and recognition of the value of your insightful coments.. Of course.. well thank you for this peaceful week then
Well, of course !
:P
That's why they care so much about it...
It's supposed to be under "science" so why is everybody asking how it tastes ?
We should be asking ourselves... what would happen if an indestructible sandwich travelling at very high speed were to meet another indestructible sandwich travelling at the same speed ??
Actualy you almost got it right:
Buttered bread *always* lands butter-down, unless you put the butter on the wrong side (Murphy Law).
Here lies the felines secret... they have buttered feet and so consistantly fall on their feet that's why.
I think your're assuming this virtual keyboard is intended to be a nice keyboard by itself.
But I don't think it is, it's just a better keyboard for handhelds or other very small devices that cannot have any decent keyboard at all.
Any real keayboard will be better than this, wether or not you are a touch typist.
This will however be much more useful than what we currently have for handhelds.
... no balls...
*ducks*
Hey look at me I'm spinning.. I'm spinning...
Couldn't this be a shape hint ? :)
I think 3 stars like this would actualy give us a complete 'scan' of the universe...
I don't know how we got to estimate universe age (I'd like someone to tell me btw).
But if it is not based on geometric obervations but rather.. I don't know.. actual background radiation or something...
Than maybe the universe age isn't the only thing to consider if we see an apparently 'too old' galaxy, but rather a funny shape issue.
I was precisely trying to find some clues as how to find 'observable evidences' for a funny shaped Universe that 's why I thought this might be one.
If our Universe is like a 3d surface bending on a 4th (geometric, not time) dimension (it's still 3d but it is closed over itself like a sphere for example). then I expect som funny things to happen:
A star could glow, its wave front should expand sphericaly ad infinitum to the point its energy density is so low it's undetectable (too far) losing a lot of energy on its way (because of objects on its way), but then, it should a t a time of its travel reach the universe 'equator' (if Universe doesn't expand faster than light, but I don't think it does since i can see stars) and then starts to contract again until it reaches its oposite point on the surface. there, it should interfere with itself and continue its way but inverted.
On its way back, it could then appear to be a regular star, although it would in fact be a 'mirror image' of it.
Wouldn't that image lie on its age/distance ? (not sure how we really know its age/distance right now, so it might be a dumb supposition.. I really don't know). Anyway... it could be interesting toobserve such a star because it would contain information of the whole universe
I guess the universe gets older and older.. :)
Damn... so do I